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Machinist Bob Schneeveis made the Solar Electric Robot Chariot. Powered by the sun, the chariot is pulled by an anatomic machine that walks on wheels to lengthen its stride. Machined almost completely out of metal, the mechanics of this art car are driven by Grant Grundler at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. http://makerfaire.com/pub/e/5217

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could make a machine that would make 3D models of phenomena otherwise invisible to you? It’s fun to do, and it’s is an amazing creative process to create a machine that produces something that you can hold in your hand from the invisible – and it’s surprisingly easy.

How do you make a walking biped robot, with only 3 servos? In this episode of The Latest in Hobby Robotics, Frits Lyneborg from letsmakerobots.com shows you his inventive way of doing just that.

The programs used the robot on the video can be downloaded here: letsmakerobots.com/​node/​29379

Tools needed are just very basics, like saw, drill, ruler etc.

Materials are the 3 servos, some wood (4 paint sticks), hot glue, a couple of screws and some thread locking fluid. The servos are controlled by an AXE230, and batteries are used as balancing weight.

You can use either 3 “normal” batteries, or 4 rechargeable, you just need somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5 volts.

You can adjust the the height of the batteries, and there are several parameters to adjust in the programming code as well, to make your robot walk well.

You can also port the simple code to any other micro controller of your choise, and add sensors, arms and more to your own robot.

If you have never build a robot before, the best place to start is probably here: letsmakerobots.com/​start

Learn how to make a drifting robot car with a few cheap components and some simple code in this tutorial episode of The Latest in Hobby Robotics.

The car used in the video is a “Fast Lane RC Monster Drift 1:24″ by Maisto Tech. It’s sold in many webshops and on eBay.

The code shown in the video can be downloaded here: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/28787

Microcontroller used:
PICAXE 08M on AXE230 by Revolution Education (picaxe.com)

Ultra-Sonic Ranger used:
SRF05 by Devantech Ltd (robot-electronics.co.uk)

Tools used:
DSO nano – Pocket size oscilloscope by Seeed Studio (http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKSEEED11&Click=37845)
Simple Servo Tester by Gadget Gangster (gadgetgangster.com)

How to make your very first robot:

http://letsmakerobots.com/start

Letsmakerobots.com on twitter:

http://twitter.com/letsmakerobots